Graham County
A copper operation of 1,071, and a town it is not standing on
Two rows are filed here. A copper operation under Freeport-McMoRan carries 1,071 employees, and a sand and gravel plant under W W Clyde carries 4. That is 1,075 people between them, in a county that carries almost nothing else on this state’s list.
The relationship between the operation and the town is worth stating, because it is different from the one 26.8 miles away. The bigger operation over there is a company town — the mine and the settlement occupy the same ground. This one sits 8.4 miles from its own town, which means the town is a town in its own right rather than an appendage of the mine.
That gap of 8.4 miles is a commute, a supply chain and a separate commercial district. Between the two operations there are 6,941 employees within 26.8 miles of each other, which is the largest concentration of copper employment anywhere in this state, and this town is the ordinary settlement nearest to the middle of it.
So there is an actual local economy here, and it owns trucks
Those 8.4 miles are the difference between a mining camp and a market town, and for a truck seller the difference is everything.
A company town has one employer and no independent trade. A town 8.4 miles from its mine has builders, hauliers, farm operations, plant hire and a supply chain that serves 1,071 employees at one operation and 5,870 at the other without belonging to either. That is a genuine local economy, and it owns a very mixed fleet: tippers, lowboys, tankers, flatbeds, service bodies and pickups, in ones and twos rather than in fleets.
Those trucks live hard. Long distances between jobs across Graham County, heavy work when they arrive, high summer heat and unsealed site roads. The driveline earns its miles and the cooling side and suspension take the punishment, which is a different reading from a metro truck at the same odometer. We ask what it did and where, because in this county the two answers are rarely the same.
Arizona weight law
One axle number, and the tolerance is already inside it
All of that runs under a state figure written differently from most.
Arizona sets the single axle at 20,000 lb under A.R.S. § 28-1100, and the enforcement tolerance is included in that number rather than added on top of it. Alabama is the only other state on file that builds it in the same way — Georgia, Kentucky and Florida all publish a base and then allow something over it. So a driver who has worked one of those states and moved here can arrive expecting headroom this section does not give.
The gross limit is a different matter. It was not extracted from the section text when the rule file was compiled, so this page does not state one. An unverified ceiling is worse than no ceiling, and the section itself is where the answer is.
A.R.S. § 28-1100. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.
Arizona paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork is one sentence and then a set of fixes.
Everything after that sentence is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.
Arizona has no percentage threshold for salvage. A.R.S. § 28-2091 brands a vehicle salvage where it has been stolen, wrecked, destroyed, flood or water damaged, or otherwise damaged to the point that the owner, the leasing company, the lender or the insurer considers it uneconomical to repair. That is a judgement rather than an arithmetic test, and the wording sits closest to California’s. Four of the seven states on file work this way; Kentucky and Alabama use 75 per cent and Florida 80.
There is also a separate nonrepairable class, and A.R.S. § 28-2095 covers the restored salvage certificate — its inspection triggers were not extracted, so this page does not describe them.
A.R.S. § 28-2091, § 28-2095. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
Those rules land the same way on every body style, and so does the offer. We buy all of them.
Haul trucks and rigid dumps, lowboys and heavy haulers, tankers, tandem and tri-axle dump trucks and aggregate haulers, farm trucks and grain hauls, day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds and stake beds, water trucks, service bodies, box trucks, rollbacks, and the crew pickups. Box trucks and straight trucks are not a Graham County thing in particular — they are everywhere — and we buy those too.
All four ways are open: we come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us. And if a contract has ended and there are several to move, say so at the start — with 1,071 employees at one operation and 5,870 at the other 26.8 miles away, that is a normal shape here, and it changes the collection plan rather than the offer on each truck.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Safford
- Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Rust is not a disqualifier.
- How big is the operation here?1,071 employees, plus a sand and gravel plant under W W Clyde with 4. The operation 26.8 miles away carries 5,870, so there are 6,941 between the two.
- Is the mine in the town?No, and that is the point. It sits 8.4 miles from its own town, so unlike its neighbour this is a market town rather than a company town.
- Can you take several at once?Yes. Around a concentration of 6,941 employees, contracts ending put several trucks up together. Give us the list up front; it changes collection, not the offer per truck.
- What is the axle limit?20,000 lb on a single axle under A.R.S. § 28-1100, with the enforcement tolerance already inside that number. Do not add anything to it.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
Why people call
Those are the mechanics. The reasons behind a call are more personal than that.
Retiring. A medical that did not go the way it used to. A contract that ended, or an outfit that has grown out of one truck and into another and needs the first one gone. In a town 8.4 miles from an operation of 1,071 people, the businesses that call are the ones in between — a haulier, a builder, a plant-hire outfit with four trucks and one of them now idle.
Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for, in Safford and across Graham County.